


Just a Little, Just Enough

by Effluvium



Series: Understanding [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Effluvium/pseuds/Effluvium
Summary: "He shuts up really easily.  Gets scared, like something's going to come to kill him.  I don't like it, makes me feel uneasy, worried."





	1. White Room

**Author's Note:**

> First post... let's see what happens.

"Someone wants to see you."

The greying man lifted his head, looking skeptical. "And who's that?"

"Some kid, said he needed to clear things with you." The officer rose a brow. "He's awfully calm for someone about to see an illegal-arms carrier and murderer."

Toomes frowned now, feeling uneasy. "How long have I been in here?"

:"About a year-and-a-half."

And so he was being led to the much-too-white room by handcuffs and an egotistical police officer. It was 9:36 in the morning, the sun shining through the windows with velocity and vigor. And then, there he was, standing in front of him.

Peter nodded to the officer, waving him off. When they were alone, Toomes took his seat and the boy proceeded to stare him down; those brown orbs suddenly didn't seem so young and innocent.

"This is bizarre, if I do say so myself." Toomes said, trying his best to sound nonchalant. "It's almost ten. Not even lunch time yet."

The brunette's hair had significantly less gel in it, the brown locks freely sitting behind his ears. "Who have you talked to the most, in here?"

Toomes rose a brow. "I don't talk to anyone. No one seems to like me."

"I was told 'bout a year ago by one of your clients that I needed to 'get better at this part of the job'." Peter narrowed his eyes. "Who have you been talking to?"

Toomes shivered, the atmosphere changing. "Just a couple people. Tommy. Mac."

"And which of them are still here?"

"Tommy."

"And which of them has tattoos on his face?"

"Mac." Toomes furrowed his brows. "What the fuck, kid."

"Did you know who he was?" Peter leaned forward slightly, looking worn. "Did he bribe you with something? Because no one like him knew who I was before you, Toomes. No one."

"I didn't tell nobody."

"Did he say he had friends, outside? Outside of this hell?" He waved his hands around the white room. "Did he tell you he wanted to slit my throat, put my head on a pedestal?"

"No one told me anything."

"My tracker told me differently," he clicked his fingers and suddenly a minuscule drone landed in his palm. "You told them my name without a care, Toomes. Like I don't understand what family is."

Toomes rose his hands in a defensive manner. "Look, Pete, I didn't mean any harm -"

"She's dead."

"What?"

Peter narrowed his eyes, jaw set in controlled anger. "My aunt, my only family. She's dead, gone. I'm never going to see her again, eat her spaghetti again, watch movies with her again." He laid back. "I know you understand that feeling, just minus the 'never', because for you there is a possibility, no matter how small it is."

"Peter," the grey man felt queasy, wrong; this was all upside-down, flipped over. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for anything to happen to you all -"

"You know," Peter's voice was softer now, like he'd given up; it gave Toomes a cold feeling. "I thought I'd left all this shit with you behind. Liz moved to Oregon, you were in jail; it was all done for. I'd finally impressed Mr. Stark. But it isn't that easy, is it?"

He huffed, sitting sideways to the table. "You left a parking garage on me, Toomes. You saw me and decided to kill me. You dropped concrete, metal, wood, everything you had on me; it was suffocating. i called out for help because, fuck, I was fifteen. Do you know what suffocating feels like? To have your lungs crushed in by your spine and rib cage? You must, because you dropped me in a lake to drown, too."

Toomes could feel the heat leaving the room, the boy's brown eyes staring into his sockets. It hurt, a lot, knowing that he couldn't do anything anymore, good or bad. "I'm sorry."

"Do you know what it feels like to be bashed into the ground, clawed by metal?" Peter suddenly looked horrified, dead in the eyes. "You hung me, Toomes. You hung me by my ratty, old sweatshirt because you just didn't care. You watched me turn blue."

Adrian had nothing to say to any of the accusations, and he knew that was killing Peter inside. He'd never seen the kid so broken.

"I haven't told anyone about that, by the way." The brunette looked at his hands. "I didn't tell anyone about the building, or the hanging, or how you pulled a gun on a fifteen-year-old boy going to homecoming, threatening to kill him if he did the one thing that made him who he was. You're lucky Mr. Stark still doesn't know, because if he did, you'd be..." Peter paused slightly. "You wouldn't be here right now."

And Adrian believed him. He knew how Tony Stark worked, what went on inside his head. he knew he held Peter closer to him than his own wife, and he knew killing that kid would have ended something great in him.

"And you know, you know what's funny?" Peter laughed slightly, sadly. "I... I brought you out. Do you remember that? I ran through all that fire, hardly breathing and hurt, and saved your sorry ass. And then I laid on the ground next to you and wheezed and coughed and you just laid there, watching me; I could feel your eyes on me, Toomes." He breathed heavily, a large sigh escaping him as he once again made eye-contact with his torturer. "And you didn't kill me."

"Of course not," Adrian amended. "You'd just... saved me."

"I know you keep knives in your boots and jackets." Peter deadpanned, giving him a hard look. "You could have done it. I know it ran through your head."

And he was right, it did. it ran through his head at about a million miles a second, telling him to finish him off, to kill him. He would get away, make up some story to his wife, and everything would be alright, just the same as it had been before this entire mess.

_"Who's taking you to homecoming?"_

_"This boy from decathlon, Peter. He's really sweet."_

_"Never heard of him."_

_"He's so smart; so, so smart. And he's got the kindest morale about him, it's miraculous. I think something's wrong with him, though."_

_"What makes you say that?"_

_"He always seems so lost, y'know? Like that look in the eyes that just screams broken, or not quite okay. Like he's hiding something, or something hiding him."_

_"You sure he's not mental?"_

Elizabeth had not laughed.

_"He skips a lot, always wishing for something, expecting something to exist that doesn't. But he's too kind to say no and too sad to not be sorry; it's like a hero-complex, dad. You know what those are, right?'_

_"Yeah, I do. Stark sure has one."_

_"Stark? No."_ She was certain in that moment. _"Peter's so much better than Tony Stark; he's not a superhero, but knows how to act like one, and it's absolutely embarrassing for him. But its a great thing, dad. He's a good person."_

There'd been a five-minute silence after that, long and hollow and empty. It made Adrian's heart hurt.

_"How's his family?"_

_"I don't know. He doesn't talk about family a lot, get's kind of closed-off if someone asks. Ned says he lives with his aunt, and Michelle says his uncle was shot almost a... year ago? I heard his parents died with he was real little, too."_

_"So it's just him and his aunt?"_

_"Yeah, but... there's someone else, y'know? Someone else there that he never talks about. Ned is like a brother to him, which is adorable, and Michelle watches from a distance, but... there's someone there. Someone invisible, like an alter-ego, or a ghost."_

_"Have you ever asked him about it?"_

_"He shuts up really easily. Gets scared like something's going to come to kill him. I don't like it, makes me feel uneasy, worried."_

'My aunt was shot while I was out on patrol," Peter said, bringing him back to reality. "Karen, my AI, said there'd been a homicide down in Forest Hills. I was so tired it didn't occur to me that that's where I lived."

Toomes stayed silent. 

"The guy was already gone, but she was there, laid out on the couch. Shot straight through the squishy part of the head, y'know? And i cried and cried and I _sobbed_ , because she was my rock, my safe-place. And then, when the police finally got there, I had to leave and act like it'd never happened, like my aunt wasn't just killed in her house because of my suicidal, selfish acts of kindness."

"You're a good man, Peter."

"When Mr. Stark first met me," Peter sighed, pale and monotone, "he kept calling me Spider-boy. Kept calling me kid, and he hasn't done that since last November, when you dropped that building on me." He laughed, making Adrian jump. "Strange, isn't it? Only took me nearly dying to knock some sense into him."

_"He shuts up really easily. Get's scared, like something's going to come to kill him. I don't like it, makes me feel uneasy, worried."_

"And you want to know what bothers me more than my aunt dying?" Peter stood, leaning his hands on the table, tapping out the syllables. "I still don't want to _kill them_. I still don't have the strength in me to go out there and end their lives because of this goddamn hero-complex. I don't have it in me to go and make it clear to them that they'd done wrong, that it wasn't okay to go kill her because it was such a _low-blow_. Do you know what that's like?"

A pause. Adrian bites his lip, trying desperately to think of a way to answer.

"No, you don't, because you were going to hang me." Peter tilted his head, his sweater hanging off his thin, muscular frame. "I tried to kill myself the other day, yesterday. Decided not to shoot a web, decided to miss. You want to know what happened?"

"Peter...."

"Karen shot the web for me. Broke my wrist from the sudden stop, called Mr. Stark, briefed him on the four-second incident within the ten seconds it took for him to pick up." The brunette huffed, defeated. "I landed on a balcony and listened to him as he clawed through me, talked about self-deficiency and self-preservation. Talked about what my aunt would want, talked about how he would feel, talked about how MJ and Ned would never forgive me."

_"He always seems so lost, y'know? like that look in the eyes that just screams broken, or not quite okay. Like he's hiding something, or something's hiding him."_

"I guided this really sweet Spanish woman through Queens the other day. She told me about how her daughter had died and her son had been deported and how her husband was forced to fight in an abusive gang. She asked if I had any family, and I told her that I didn't have much." Peter squinted, as if thinking. "She told me that I didn't have to have much, and that sometimes just a little is just enough."

_"Who's taking you to homecoming?"_

_"This boy from decathlon, Peter. He's really sweet."_

"I came to you, Toomes, because you started it all." Peter sighed, looking to the spider-tracker in longing. "You alone. You made my suit have a purpose, not me. Not Tony Stark, not Happy Hogan, not my nerdy friend. Remember that night you nearly drowned me? I was going to be a party trick before that, before I decided to find out who the fuck was blowing up cars."

_"... he's too kind to say no and too sad to not be sorry; it's like a hero-complex, dad. You know what those are, right?"_

"And I forgive you, because I don't hate you. I hate the person you were, and the things that person did." He stood, reserved, knowing he'd won, proven his point. "But I don't hate who you are now."


	2. Seventy-Eight Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His mask was off. After this, it didn’t really matter who knew who he was. The reason he wore the mask was dead and buried six-feet under in a cemetery six blocks from Forest Hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry, you'll never get a consistent posting-schedule from me. Take every note I write with a grain of salt.

“Peter, your neurological functions are fluctuating more so than usual. Is something wrong?”

He looked down at his hands.

Red, blue, black; webbing like that of a spider’s home.

“Yes, Karen, something’s wrong.”

His mask was off. After this, it didn’t really matter who knew who he was. The reason he wore the mask was dead and buried six-feet under in a cemetery six blocks from Forest Hills.

“It’s odd that you’ve stopped your patrol, Peter; it’s nowhere near time for dinner. May isn’t even home from work yet.”

Tony Stark can create a million amazing things, but they’ll never be able to interpret.

“May’s dead, Karen.”

His feet dangled like torn ropes.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Peter. I do not recall this event.”

Seventy-eight stories down, without a mask.

“You were recording her when it happened, Karen. I was looking right at her.”

Seventy-eight stories down, without a breath.

“It seems that the footage has been deleted from my memory. I’ll log this conversation for future reference.”

That did confuse him; made him stop and think for just a moment. Why would Karen delete the footage? How did she consciously do that?

“Peter, why is your mask off?”

There were no balconies on this building.

“Needed to get some air.”

Seventy-eight stories down, obstacle-free.

“There’s an oxygen reserve in the suit to allow you to breathe easier with the mask.” She seemed to pause, almost humanely. “You hate heights, Peter.”

Peter lets out a shaky breath. Looking down was nauseating. “I really do, Karen.”

“Then why’re you on the tallest building in Queens? There’s no crime for approximately four miles.”

A small whine, escaping without his permission. Nearly untraceable.

“I guess I’ll get down, then.”

And he stepped off.

At first, it felt normal; he’d done this plenty before. Free-falling was like a bad habit, always consciously pushing himself to another limit. The air that seeped through the fabric was cold, a normalcy, but the lack of momentum on his side of gravity was utterly terrifying.

“Peter, I recommend you stop falling now.”

They were at forty-two stories. He didn’t know if he was hearing things, or if it was just the wind deafening him as he fell, but he could’ve sworn that Karen was worrying.

Too bad he couldn’t find the air in his lungs to tell her not to.

“Peter, you need to shoot a web and stop your momentum. You’re going to hit the ground in approximately thirteen seconds.”

He’d done the math in his head, and in reality, seventy-eight stories was really unnecessary. He could’ve done the job quicker with less than half that number.

Twenty-four seconds was too long to live your last moments.

_“Overriding web-shooter controls.”_

They were at eight seconds when she said it. While Karen’s voice was automated, it was shrill; that, combined with the sudden stop, whipped him into a shaky state of awareness. She forced him to crash land on an old, rusted, metal balcony, breaking his wrist and nearly dislocating his arm in the process.

_“Calling Tony Stark.”_

The automated voice was trembling.

“She has never done that.”

The voice was controlled. Peter winced, feeling the dam roil beneath it. “I didn’t know she could.”

“I installed that system thinking that it would never be used.” The voice gave out a breathy sigh, letting more water leak through. “I told myself it was just my overactive imagination and maybe a little bit of over protectiveness. I did give you 576 web-shooter combinations, after all, as if you would use them all.” 

Silence.

How was he going to explain this?

“Wrist broken?”

Peter looked down at it. There was blood seeping into his suit.

“Yeah.”

“Must suck.” The voice didn’t bother to sound too sincere. “But, y’know, that’s what fucking happens when you decide to go and _kill yourself_.”

“Mr. Stark --”

“You’re, what, sixteen?” Suddenly his face was floating in front of him, a hologram from the web-shooter on his broken wrist. “You turn seventeen in, like, three weeks. You haven’t even graduated. You haven’t gotten a job, or gone to college.”

“Mr. Stark….”

“What were you _thinking_?” His nose wrinkled in a snarl. “Did you think about anyone, in that moment?”

Did he?

“Yes, I did.”

_No, I didn’t._

“Ned called me the other day,” Tony said, all nonchalant and I-totally-don’t-care-that-this’ll-hurt-you. “He said he was worried about you. I told him _that’s reasonable_ , y’know? But that you’re reasonable, too, so don’t worry too hard.”

Peter hates that he knows his friends so well.

“And now,” the billionaire continued, “I’m a liar. I’m a liar and your friend was right to worry because he reads you better than I do. But that’s expected, too, y’know? Because he’s _known you_ your _entire life_.”

Peter gritted his teeth and held his wrist in the correct healing position, feeling the pain slowly diminish. “I’ve never been this alone before.”

“Peter --”

“And I _miss her_.” He huffs, defeated as tears come to his eyes. “And I’m _tired_ of missing her. It’s been nearly three weeks and I just can’t get it out of my head.”

“Get what out of your head?”

“Her. May, bloodied and lifeless and --” he drew a sharp breath, “and so _pale_.”

Tony got this soft look in his eyes, then. The kind that came when you saw a dog with a broken leg, but you’d had a broken leg before and understood how much of a pain it was.

“Your girlfriend came to me, too.”

“My _girlfriend_?”

“Michelle. MJ,” he continued, sighing. “Said that she’d seen you around the city, in your spider-gig. Said that you weren’t as clean, said that you were getting sloppy.” 

“Mr. Stark --”

“Peter, you’re not alone in this.” Tony leaned forward, a tired, stubborn look in his brown eyes. “I get that it’s hard, and that you’re upset, and that it’s all some real bullshit, what happened to you. But what you tried to pull today, seven minutes ago? That’s not okay.”

“I know, Mr. Stark --”

He held up a hand, biting his lip. “You don’t know, not right now. You’re seeing it from the victim’s standpoint, not the witness’s.”

A robin landed on the balcony next to him, inches away from where his foot rested between the bars.

“You have people out here,” he waved around, “that would shatter if you were gone. MJ, Ned, me, hell -- even Karen; she wouldn’t know what to do with herself, Peter, and neither would anyone else. Decisions like the one you tried to make back there are never one-sided. They’re never just about you, even if you’re the only one at risk.”

Peter’s lips drew into a line, watching as the robin hopped along his leg, inching closer and closer to his chest.

“Your Aunt would never want that.” He rose a brow, a sad look in his eyes. “And I know that’s the last thing you want to hear right now because, really -- who am I to talk about what your Aunt would or wouldn’t want?” He sighed. “Thing is, Peter, May was a great person, and great people would never want those they love to hurt themselves over someone lost.”

The robin plopped on Peter’s chest, resting its eyes as it snuggled between Peter’s neck and shoulder.

He smiled lightly.

“Ned wouldn’t be able to move on if you left us.” Tony continued, blinking slowly. “Michelle would hole herself up and shut herself off to everyone around her. Karen would lie unused and desolate, gathering dust in the corner of my workshop because I would _mourn_ , Peter, and I’d stare at the suit every day and think of what I could’ve done to save you.”

Dead silence. It was breezy outside, deafening any humid buzz that would’ve made itself known otherwise.

The robin had fallen asleep.

Peter’s head was clear.

“I need to make peace.”

Tony nodded, taking a deep breath. “You do that however you want, Peter. Even if it means killing those guys that did this to you.”

He shook his head, grabbing his mask from where he’d webbed it to his side. “I’d never forgive myself if I did that, Mr. Stark.”

“Good man.”

“I’m gonna go schedule something,” he said, looking at the billionaire. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. Sorry for scaring you.”

“See you at the tower tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I know it's short. It kind of came in the spur of the moment. Plus, everyone seems to like the first chapter a fuck ton.


End file.
